Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Finally! A Provincial plan to end homelessness.

I was pleased to see that Alberta has taken a leadership position by finally issuing Canada's first provincial plan on strategies to end homelessness. Better yet, it appears that the plan follows the goals/strategies previously set out by other municipal organizations, including Calgary's 10 year plan. This should allow for a more efficient use of resources and prevent different agenda's ( eg. The Mustard Seed vs. Calgary Drop in Centre) and visions from really working together to solve the issue.

The study estimates that the cost of this plan will be around $3.3 Billion dollars over 10 years! I was shocked at that figure, but when you look at the real cost of DOING NOTHING....the costs to taxpayers are significantly higher. Check out the projections on the chart at the bottom of the above link. Wow.) The Red Tory in me supports this initiative 100%. This problem cannot be addressed without the support of the Provincial government and I applaud them for finally taking an official position on this.

If we can set aside $2Billion for carbon capture and storage, surely Alberta can fund this initiative. I think that the days of finding excuses to avoid the issue are over. I just hope the plan does not get lost in the shuffle.